Personal Stories

Sarita Yonjan (Chhaimale VDC, Simpani)

Sarita Yonjan, a 27 year old woman, lives with her husband in Simpani village in Chhaimale VDC.  She works in her small farm and is self sufficient. She has two sons, one is 7 years old and the other is 11 months old. Currently, she is also 8 months pregnant. She has completed 4 ANC visits in her earlier pregnancy and delivered her children in the hospital. Since the younger child is still too young and she is about to give birth soon to another one, she has not been feeling comfortable in looking after her children and is very worried with not being able to breastfeed her children.

She has recently joined GTN women’s group and is regularly participating in the monthly meetings. She said that she has learnt usable knowledge on family planning and contraceptives, children’s health and hygiene from the GTN home visit program and meetings. She thinks that if she had received such knowledge earlier, she would not have suffered through this unplanned pregnancy. She knew about GTN group, however, her husband did not allow her to join the group because she had her children and house chores to attend to. Later on, she and her husband realized that GTN increases awareness on maternal and child health and that she needed these meetings to learn how to rear her children. Now, her husband himself sends her to attend GTN monthly meetings. After attending such meetings she learnt to create a balance diet for her children and herself. She also learnt about the possible complications during pregnancy. She says that “Now, I’m more able to choose nutritious food for my children so they don’t get sick as much as before.”  She also expressed that “I did not know that I was pregnant because I did not get my menstruation period since the birth of my last baby but when I realized something was moving inside my tummy, I went to health post and a nurse told me that I was 6 months pregnant. I felt very bad.   But now, I have decided to take precaution and start using contraceptives after the delivery of this baby.”

Suna  Tamang (Chhaimale VDC, Simpani)

Suna Tamang, a 20-year-old woman, has a 4-month-old baby boy. She stayed in Kathmandu City until the baby was delivered and then came back to her husband’s home in Simpani, Chhaimale VDC. Her husband works in Kathmandu so she stayed with him during her pregnancy period and gave a birth in the maternity hospital in the city. “I love coming to the meetings because we get lots of informative knowledge on women’s health and caring for our children. At the same time I am getting closer to women of this village because my husband is from this village but my maternal home is too far from here.” She also feels that such meetings are fruitful in getting to know other women and sharing similar problems.